Tent City is history: City and homeless camp property owner reach settlement

This photo was taken more than a month ago at the site of the former homeless camp known as "Tent City." In May, more than 100 volunteers came out to clean up the site and later, the property owner, Robert Lurvey, paid for further cleanup.(Photo: Andrew Jansen/News-Leader)Buy Photo

Property owner Rob Lurvey agreed to keep the 11-acre tract of land clear of underbrush and small trees, the settlement says.

Neither party has to pay the other any money, and each side is responsible for its own legal fees.

The city will continue to inspect the property and give Lurvey no less than 20 days to correct any problems, according to the settlement.

"The City is pleased to have reached an agreement with Mr. Lurvey," said Cora Scott, spokesperson for the city. "We believe the progress that has been made in the clean up of that property has been nothing short of amazing. It took a village to get us to where we are today and coming to an agreement with the property owner is one of the biggest silver linings."

Lurvey's attorney, Greg Aleshire, said in an email he believes his client is happy the legal wrangling is finally over. The disagreement over who is responsible for cleaning the property dates back to the 1990s, when a construction company contracted by the city allegedly dumped concrete and asphalt around the property.

"As to whether Lurvey received a 'fair deal,' I still believe he was targeted by the City's selective prosecution for ordinance violations," Aleshire continued. "Even though complaints about properties owned by others along Kearney Street have been documented, only owners with the last name of Lurvey have been cited for alleged violations. But I think Rob Lurvey is pleased to have his suit with the City resolved and is hopeful that his relationship with the City improves going forward."

It got too big, too dangerous

Citing increases in complaints from business owners and police calls for service to the area, city officials worked with the Ozarks Alliance to End Homelessness on the plan to evacuate the camp in 2017.

A multi-agency response center (MARC) was set up in tents and trailers next to the camp. At the center, individuals were given immediate access to medical and mental health services, emergency shelter assessments, and help with obtaining IDs.

Michelle Garand is vice president of Affordable Housing and Homeless Prevention for Community Partnership of the Ozarks. Garand helped organize and operate the MARC.

Garand said the property had homeless people camping there off and on for some 30 years, but the camp had become particularly dangerous in recent years.

Based on her experience, people in smaller homeless camps tend to know each other and look out for one another. But at the time Tent City was shut down, there were about 100 people living there.

"Things can get out of control quickly with this huge number of people in one camp," she said. "We wouldn't even send volunteers far back into the camp. It was a very dangerous place to be."

"We had accounts of drug use, martial law. We heard that there was a whole governance," she continued. "A community had evolved where individuals were voted in or out. And when you were out, it was not a healthy out."

Martial law, governance?

The News-Leader spoke to the man identified as Tent City's former leader last fall in the Greene County Justice Center.

Michael D. Hancock, whose street name was Hillbilly, is charged with felony armed criminal action and felony robbery. He is the suspect in a gas station robbery committed minutes before he was shot by two Springfield police officers.

Hancock likely wouldn't disagree with Garand's description of a "governance" at Tent City.

According to police reports from early 2017, some homeless people said they were afraid of Hancock — that he was in charge, had weapons and could be violent.

Michael Hancock, known on the streets as Hillbilly, is in jail facing multiple felony charges. But for a time he was the de facto leader of a former homeless camp in Springfield.
Jackie Rehwald/News-Leader

"I ain't as bad as all the police reports you've been reading," he said in his interview with the News-Leader. Hancock said he is innocent of the current charges against him, but owned up to other crimes.

This is Michael Hancock, former leader of a homeless camp in Springfield, a few hours before his wedding. He was married in the large camp located near Kearney and Glenstone.(Photo: Submitted photo)

"Yes, I might have run a few people out of that camp because they were trying to steal from someone, trying to hurt somebody for no good reason," he said.

"I ain't no angel. Most people ain't," he added. "In the eight months I was there, I probably sent three people out in an ambulance."

Hancock said each of those three people either attacked him or someone else first.

He described himself as a "bully's bully."

Michael and Sharon, known as Hillbilly and Moma D, exchange rings at their wedding held in the homeless camp in 2016. Sharon died of an overdose a few months later.(Photo: Submitted photo)

On a November night in 2016, Hancock was married in the woods at Tent City. His wife later died of a drug overdose in those same woods.

Joy Burk has owned a home near the camp since 1977. She remembers her children playing in those woods, building forts and playing games. There were no homeless people camping there back in the '70s, she said.

For the past few years, Burk has fed the small colony of feral cats who live in the woods. She knew Hancock well and described him as a polite, yet tough, leader.

"Hillbilly was a strong figure out here in these woods," Burk said. "He was leadership out here. People didn't walk all over him."

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Sylvester, a feral cat living in the former homeless camp near Walmart on Kearney Street, bolts from his cage as he is released by Joy Burk on Friday, June 16, 2017. Burk captured Sylvester and had him neutered at SAAF.(Photo: Andrew Jansen/News-Leader)

For more than 25 years, Greg Thomas' insurance office sat next to the large homeless camp.

He also remembers Hancock.

"I saw him out here one time, waving his machete around, screaming and hollering," Thomas said, motioning around the parking lot in front of his business. "When you see that, it kind of makes you wonder."

A happy business owner

Other than having to wash urine off the sidewalk most mornings, Thomas said he never had any problems or felt threatened by the homeless people.

Still, he is glad they are gone and that the property has been cleaned up.

Now, Thomas can step out his back door and see a nice green space instead of strangers creeping around, he said.

Today, the property has only sparse tall trees. One can see all the way through the woods; hiding a tent would be difficult.

Not long ago, the thick underbrush made it impossible to see into the woods.

Thomas said since the camp was shut down last summer, he hasn't noticed anyone camping in the woods.

He, too, recalled how dangerous the camp had become by 2017.

"There have always been groups of homeless people coming and going," he said. "But that last group right before they shut it down, they were pretty violent. There was some crazy stuff going on."

Long dispute over who's responsible

When city officials took steps to remove about 100 homeless campers from Tent City last summer, they intended to clear the property except for trees taller than 6 feet to prevent future encampments.

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This is a 2012 file photo of the homeless camp near the intersection of Glenstone and Kearney.(Photo: Nathan Papes, Nathan Papes/News-Leader)

They also intended to bill Lurvey for the cleanup, estimated to cost more than $350,000.

That high price tag was due to the piles of concrete, asphalt and other construction debris scattered throughout the wooded area.

Lurvey filed a suit against the city of Springfield, which prevented the city from clearing the property and left many to wonder how long it would take for homeless people to return.

Aleshire represented Lurvey in the matter, just as he did back in the 1990s. As he contended back then, Aleshire says the construction debris was dumped there illegally by Hartman & Company, a construction company that was contracted by the city.

The city first tried to get Lurvey to clean up the property in 1995. Aleshire appealed the case to the circuit court. That judge found that Lurvey had not been given sufficient notice by the city. And in the meantime, Lurvey filed a suit against the city of Springfield and Hartman & Company that accused the company of trespassing and illegally dumping the debris on Lurvey's property.

According to the 1997 settlement to the trespassing suit, Lurvey agreed to pay $19,000 toward cleanup costs and Hartman & Company "agree(d) to crush rock, concrete, bricks, concrete blocks and other crushable material constituting clean fill, and level the lot ... so that it can be brush hogged."

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Piles of concrete, asphalt, bricks and steel Rebar are hindering efforts to clean up the former homeless camp located near the intersection of Kearney and Glenstone.(Photo: News-Leader file photo)

At a hearing last summer, Lurvey testified that Hartman & Company removed debris from about 3 acres of his 14-acre tract of land, leaving 11 acres still littered with debris and impossible to mow.

With Lurvey's permission, the News-Leader entered the property last summer and found piles of concrete, asphalt, bricks and rebar. In some places, the piles were nearly 6 feet high. In others, the debris appeared to have been there so long it had become part of the ground or had trees growing up through it.

"The city says, 'Let's get this cleaned up. In fact, we will clean it up and send you the bill," Bill Robb, one of Lurvey's attorneys, said last summer. "Well, we have been waiting for the city to clean it up since 1998, and that hasn't happened. To say we think the city isn't being fair is an understatement."

Lurvey also filed a suit against Hartman Construction, but it was dismissed.

Previous attempts to speak with a representative from Hartman & Company about the dispute were not successful.

Cleanup happened anyway

While the city and Lurvey's attorneys continued the legal back-and-forth, police visited the property regularly to enforce the trespassing ordinance.

Then in May, Freeway Ministries — a "church for the unchurched" — organized its own cleanup as a community service project. Freeway Ministries also operates several faith-based, sober-living programs for men and women.

Since many of the volunteers were recovering addicts and had been homeless in the past, the project gave them a chance to "clean up a mess similar to what they've made," explained Coby Cullins, who organized the event.

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Michael Rubatt throws trash into a box while cleaning up the former homeless camp near Kearney Street east of Glenstone Avenue on Saturday, May 19, 2018.(Photo: Andrew Jansen/News-Leader)

In the days leading up to the cleanup, Cullins and a few others used brush hogs, tractors, weed-eaters and machetes to clear out some of the overgrown brush. They made the trails throughout the property wider and created more visibility in the forest.

"Mr. Lurvey, at great personal expense, hired an independent contractor to clear trees, brush and undergrowth, without removing the construction debris dumped on the property by Hartman Construction," Aleshire said in part. "This process was periodically monitored and approved by City officials.

"Mr. Lurvey undertook this task in an effort to resolve protracted litigation with the City, even though he felt his chances of ultimately prevailing were high," Aleshire said.

Scott, the city's spokesperson, said city officials are pleased that Lurvey elevated the bottom of the canopy to around 6 feet, which will create a line of visibility across the property.

"That visibility should help prevent future encampments. In addition, the property owner plans to enhance no trespassing signage and continues to have a letter of no trespassing enforcement, which allows (police) officers to enforce it," she said.